Problem Installing Windows XP Pro

I am trying to install Windows XP Pro clean on a Gateway 366.

My first question is can you install XP by copying the i386 folder from the Installation CD to the Hard Drive. I have already partitioned & FAT32 formatted the drive & copied the i386 folder to it. I tried running "setup" & received this error; "This program cannot be run in DOS mode". Is there a way to do this? I really prefer not to install another OS, then upgrade or dual boot.

The reason for this question is that I am having trouble installing XP on this system here are the details;

I am installing Windows XP Pro on a Gateway 366. It is an AMD K6-2 366 MHz system with 256mb of RAM. I have killed the partition on the Hard Drive, so it's to be a clean install.

Even though the BIOS has a setting to enable booting from the ATAPI CD-ROM, it will not do so. I created the 6 floppy disk boot set for Windows XP. I have used this method successfully on other systems that won't boot from the CD for whatever reason. I get all the way through the 6 disks then at the end of disk 6 I get a full blue screen "STOP" error with this verbiage;

"A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. If this is the first time you have seen this stop error screen restart your computer..."

The recommended options are to check for a virus (there isn't one, there's no partition at all), to remove recently installed hard drive or controller & check your hard drive.

I ran a diagnostic on the hard drive & its fine. I can't find anything in the MS Knowledgebase that seems to apply.

I tried a second time & it did the same thing in exactly the same place.

I booted with a Windows ME boot floppy, fdisk'd the drive, formatted it FAT32 & had no problems. I'm wondering if I can copy the i386 folder to the drive & install from there?

Does this seem like a device driver compatibility issue? There isn't anything out of the ordinary in this system.

Any advice would be very welcome!

OK, one question answered... You type "winnt", not "setuo" when you are installing XP from DOS, like when the i386 is on the hard drive. You also have to have "smartdrv.exe" loaded before you run it.

Haven't had to do it yet, but I do believe it can be done. Kind of the same principle as a network/unattended install...Still, I would copy the entire CD to one folder, then run the installation from there. That was how I would reload my box with 98SE - straight from a folder on my backup HDD. Also, I think there is a readme that tells you which executable to use, but I think it is "winnt" from the command prompt.

Yep, that worked. I partitioned the drive, formatted it FAT32 & copied the i386 folder from the CD to the local drive & typed "winnt" from there. You have to have "smartdrv.exe" loaded as well. During the install it gave me the option to convert to NTFS so you aren't stuck with FAT32 & you don't have to convert after XP is installed.

One weird thing; at one point it couldn't find a necessary setup file on C:\i386, so I pointed it to the cd-rom drive "D:\i386" & it found it. Anyway, it installed beautifully. I put SP1 on it this morning & I'll finish it up tonight.